Hot Damn I'm in Rome~!

yup that's right, Rome.

So I've been in Italy with my mom and my brother for four days now and it's pretty sweet. Venice was a trip unto itself and I'm looking forward to going back there. I didn't get to go to the Bacillica at St. Marks because of the lines but I did see some really beautiful churches. There was one right next to our hotel where Tintoretto is burried and there is a lot of really beautiful art all over the place, neat surprises in the masonry and icons of the Blessed Virgin and St Mark recessed into the walls. Because there's no cars or roads the whole city is quiet. I mean really silent. You can hear the sounds of children laughing and birdsong and the church bells mark the hours you don't even need a watch. The major sites are a disgusting exhibit of capitalism but there are parts of the city which are almost deserted and some really amazing food. We are going back for the last six days. We are only in Rome for two or three, today we are going to the Colliseum and the Catacombs and then we are going to the Vatican.

There are so many motor scooters here it's really quite something.

There's a ferry which connects Venice to Grece I'll have to save up so I can do a trip out here again and take the boat to Grece and maybe from there to Turky. The really wonderful thing about Venice and Rome are the artifacts of an earlier Christianity, a time in the history of my faith when there existed a truly Orthodox Catholicism. Having been a parissioner at an Orthodox church for most of the last year I find it very hard to bear ewith Catholics and Protestants who claim the word to suppose their own traditions, Sadly one can not claim that there is a Catholic Orthodoxy because of the centuries old relations to empire and worldly power that have tainted the Catholic church, the "orthodox" Catholic line is it's own sort of heresy in so far as it ascribes a near oracular power to the Bishop of Rome and his abillity to msake infalliable statements, it's assumptions about church organisation and it's historical ties to authority and it's own quest at one time to be an empire all it's own are not Orthodox. Neither however is the Protestant assertions that Catholicism isn't a Christian tradition, it's rejection of the reality of the sacraments as something beyond symbolism or the profession of sola scriptura. I guess what I'm saying is that an honest examination of history has to admit that in the west there are a preponderance of Unorthodox churches but that orthodox or not the Protestant and Catholic churches have something to them or else they wouldn't exist. The Holy Spirit moves where it will and it breathes life into the Vatican as much as it does in the churches of Russia and Scotland and Alabama. I love how simple Christ made it at the end of John's Gospel: If you love me then keep my commandments, love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and love your neighbour as you love yourself. (Paraphrase)

If you love each other you're practicing Christianity.

That said, it's very difficult to keep those two commandments. I'll likely spend the rest of my life worshiping in a church where the established message is not "reach out and care for your neighbours no matter who they are" but more like "everyone's welcome because we won't tell you to leave". I've mused often on how in my life as a Christian a recurring theme has been that I have to forgive my church, and I think that if everyone were to look into the past histories of their church tradition that statement would ring true for everyone. The Russian Orthodox church manufactured the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to justify anti-semetic genocide, the residential schools in Canada which sexually humilliated and physically abused indigenous first nations as well as Doukhobor children were run and administered by the United Church of Canada. "The God Hates Fags" church are Calvinist protestants. The Catholic church has a bloody streak that doesn't need repeating. This isn't meant as a malicious or spiteful rant though I always get anxious while writing things like this because I know how easy it is to touch nerves. What I'm saying is that it's being able to forgive unconditionally which helps one grow in one's faith, so much more than just sitting in the pews and listening attentively, that's important but it's only fruitful when ones faith is nourished by questions and the recollection that answers only lead to further questions. And sometimes like my friend Barrett said Church is a bit like a marriage, sooner or later someone ends up sleeping on the couch.